Robert Lopez Flynn Presented with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award by Marquis Who's Who

An active professional writer, Mr. Flynn served as a novelist in residence with Trinity University in San Antonio between 1963 and 2001. Prior to this appointment, he contributed as a professor at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, from 1959 to 1963. Earlier in his career, he was associated with Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, North Carolina, between 1957 and 1959.

Mr. Flynn served on active duty with the Marines from 1950 to 1952. He then attended Baylor University, where he secured a Bachelor of Arts in 1954 and a Master of Arts in 1956. Having accomplished much over the course of his career, Mr. Flynn feels incredibly gratified to have been able to travel the world and have visited all seven continents and 70 countries.

Mr. Flynn’s creative work “North to Yesterday,” was published in 1967 and in 1968 was named by The New York Times as one of the best 20 books of fiction published in 1967. True Magazine also named it as one of the best books of the year. Mr. Flynn sent a clipping of that review to the editor of True Magazine saying that he would like to go to Vietnam as a correspondent for their magazine. They agreed and Mr. Flynn was in Vietnam in the last part of 1970 and the first part of 1971. True Magazine failed before it published any of his stories. The stories he wrote about the CUPP (Combined Unit Pacification Program) Marines were published later as a memoir, “A Personal War in Vietnam.” 

In 1989, during the embargo, Mr. Flynn returned to Vietnam and to the Area of Operation of the CUPP Marines to interview the Vietnamese who supported the Marines and fought alongside them and those who fought against the Marines and those in the infrastructure that served the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army.

After the embargo was lifted he returned to Vietnam in 1994 on the first American cruise to Vietnam along with veterans whose stories were known and reporters whose names and stories were known to the American public. There were also two Vietnamese Americans, one born in Saigon who escaped to Thailand and one born in Hanoi who escaped to Hong Kong.

Mr. Flynn’s other titles include “In the House of the Lord,” “Sounds of Rescue, Signs of Hope,” “Wanderer Springs,” “The Last Klick,” “Seasonal Rain,” “Living with the Hyenas,” “Tie-Fast Country," “Echoes of Glory,” "Lawful Abuse," “Jade: Outlaw,” “Jade: The Law,” and the spiritual memoir “Holy Literary License.”

For his accomplishments in the field, the National Cowboy Hall of Fame presented him with a Wrangler Award for “North to Yesterday” and later a second Wrangler Award for “Living with the Hyenas.” In addition, he received a Western Writers of America Spur Award for “Wanderer Springs” and for “Echoes of Glory,” and the Southwest Booksellers Award for “Seasonal Rain.” He is a past president and a Fellow of the Texas Institute of Letters and a recipient of their Lon Tinkle Award for “Lifetime Achievement.” He is a member of the Texas Literary Hall of Fame, and PEN America.

In recognition of outstanding contributions to his profession and the Marquis Who’s Who community, Mr. Flynn has been featured on the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement website. Please visit www.ltachievers.com for more information about this honor.

About Marquis Who’s Who?:

Since 1899, when A. N. Marquis printed the First Edition of Who’s Who in America?, Marquis Who’s Who? has chronicled the lives of the most accomplished individuals and innovators from every significant field of endeavor, including politics, business, medicine, law, education, art, religion and entertainment. Today, Who’s Who in America? remains an essential biographical source for thousands of researchers, journalists, librarians and executive search firms around the world. Marquis? publications may be visited at the official Marquis Who’s Who? website at www.marquiswhoswho.com.

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